Ancient DNA analysis has shown that there was substantial population turnover in Europe during and after the Last Glacial Maximum: the earlier Paleolithic European populations were largely replaced by new populations expanding from the southern refugia as the ice retreated.

Cheddar Man, in other words, was part of the second wave of modern humans to enter Britain, not the first.

His population descended from people who had survived the glacial maximum in the south and then expanded north as the ice allowed.

The very first modern Britons — whoever they were — preceded him by tens of thousands of years and left a different genetic signature.

This is another layer of complexity in the already complex story of who the British were in the deep past.